Our messy kitchen before.
It is day #7 of our Be Intentional Challenges!
As a reminder, the 30 Be Intentional challenges this month are designed to get you on the right foot, the right track and give you energy, efficiency and organization which will propel you into a life that is able to develop an overall financially smart, happy and frugal home. We are going to have different themes each month this year (and we have very exciting stuff planned) and this month is your foundation!
We encourage couples and families to do these challenges together so the whole house can function well!
As the 30 days go along, we will be focusing on 5 areas for the Be Intentional Month:
- Self
- Home
- Budget
- Schedule
- Frugality
Here’s the first 6 challenges in case you missed them and want to get your life on the right track:
- Set and Be Strict About Bedtime
- Work Towards Waking Up At The Same Time Everyday
- Making Your Bed Everyday
- Get Dressed To Shoes Everyday
- Hydrate Yourself
- 5 Minute Stretching and Breathing Exercise
Five of the six challenges so far are specifically designed as personal challenges to help you be at the top of your game. Our goal is to help you develop these has habits (just like this is the goal in our personal lives too!) and you will realize that doing these first 6 only add about 10 minutes to your day, but you will feel so much better and work so much more efficiently. We do have one more personal challenge to introduce to you, but we will share that soon as we wanted to implement something to start getting your home organized and in order.
Actually, this is one of my favorites and my day craves this activity. It is INCREDIBLE what you can do!
What is it? Well, I guess it is time to introduce Be Intentional Challenge #7 –
Implement a 20-Minute Quick Clean Sometime During Your Day (and Include Kids)
Seriously, I completely LOVE this one!! We have been doing 20-minute quick cleans for a few years now and there is typically 5 of us working – myself, our 9,8,6 and 4 year old.
The idea is working as hard as you can for 20 minutes! Anyone can do anything for 20 minutes! But with 5 of us…okay really 4 of us as the 4-year old isn’t super efficient yet… it is like an hour and half of fast vigorous cleaning. But since it is only 20 minutes, it does not rob you of your day and it does not seem as dreadful. Now granted, I am not fortunate enough to have this be enough cleaning in my day (no way with 2 toddlers and 3 other younger kids – we could get by with a nanny cleaning all day :)), but it is a huge help and lightens my load tremendously. Everyday, we do at least one 20-min quick clean. But, we often do a second or third. If we do it is usually one downstairs, one upstairs and one right before Alex comes home from work after the day’s long happenings of playtime and activities. And, when Alex is home, he participates too (I love those ones as the results are even that much more with another adult!).
So here’s an example of how effective the quick cleans are! The above picture is our kitchen and this picture is our living room, both before the same 20-min quick clean.
Our messy livingroom before.
- So when we get ready, we call everyone to the area and give the quick rules for this 20 minute quick cleans and the focus areas (so we don’t waste precious minutes giving instructions ;))
- Then we turn on some fun, upbeat music on our Pandora channel on our Roku
- Then we set the timer on the microwave in the kitchen for 20-minutes with a “mark, get set, GO…”
- And then we are off and everyone does their assigned tasks for the 20 minutes
- Then…VOILA – a magically cleaner home!
Kitchen After
We also have a Facebook Group where you can engage in discussions, receive encouragement and talk to others that are participating in the challenges too for more ideas! Head to the Be Intentional with The Thrifty Couple Facebook Page HERE and ask to join us there! You can also invite friends and spouses too!
Sarah Kelley
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this site!! It gives me great ideas and ways to save money. I am a super unorganized person, really have been my whole life. My brain moves way too fast to keep up with and then nothing gets done. It may take me awhile to get things going and organized but with tips from this site I am starting to get things going and done. I look forward to my emails each day and wish I had all day to look through this site and set up the planning sheets and such.
Thank you so much for sharing!!!!!
Tara J. Brady
I realize this post is 4 years old but you should update it and make it “an old blog series with new life” series! Maybe make some tweaks/ talk about the many changes, since your children are now old enough to be more productive in the 20 min clean up ;). Even though this is old I am going to try to get my family on board. I am chronically ill so my parents live with me and it’s just the 3 of us (all adults) living together. We all have busy lives and don’t really coordinate house care/clean ups, grocery shopping (other than us each yelling at Amazon’s Alexa to add X and Y to the grocery list.) Recently I also had a medical emergency with my father and my mother was out of town and we couldnt reach her due to the time difference. Thank God he is ok but I kept thinking how useful a Home Management binder would have been at the time with all of our medical info in there so I could tell the EMS team about his health history. We are also on a major budget and keeping track of spending as well as coupons & meal planning would help cut out those last minute runs that end up costing so much! Sorry for writing a story as a comment but I am really excited to try to get my family on board and do this series. Thanks for all your hard work and again, I really think it’s worth bringing back!!